Zero X Specs

We can't get enough of the Zero X on this blog. Our favourite Interplanetary Mars ship and Guest Star of the SWORD range and the only toy in the series to have it's own movie! Reader patron Zero reminded me how cool the cutaway is in the 1968 SWORD Annual.

Blogger may not give you very good zoom on the cutaway so check out the graphic on this Super M Zero X page, which allows you to hover over the numbers on the illustration to reveal the spec. Cool your jets Mars man!

Fab 1 Callisto 0

I used to love mixing toys together for big space adventures on the Living Room carpet when I was a kid in the Sixties. Epic battles and grand manouvres, SWORD toys, Dinky TB2, UFO Shadomobile and Interceptor, Major Matt Mason and Callisto all thrown in the mix and a whole battalion of Airfix soldiers surrounding the lot of them! Sometimes Action Man waded in too like a giant and only Captain Laser could stop him [or my Sister's Sindy!]

What were/ are your favourite toy combos?

The Hunger Games

I have just seen the Hunger Games at the cinema and have come away feeling depressed, appalled and livid in equal measure. What I saw was quite simply a sick thing as it flagrantly breaks one of the last remaining taboos in the West. To add insult to injury the film was rated 12A and obviously aimed at children. I've even heard that toys are available. The very fact that this is mainstream cinema for kids and appears very popular is disturbing, The fact that adults made it for kids is utterly depressing. What the hell has happened to our view of childhood?

LUNAR EXPLORER: A LOVE AFFAIR

One of my absolute all time fave space toys, the LUNAR EXPLORER. Had it as a kid. Have one now [minus box and antenna]. Still in love it. Anyone else have a fave tin space toy? Is tinplate as popular as plastic? [Picture: Bergin Toys]

The Countdown Game by Darth

Hey Woodsy,

I don't often come across anything new that you might find interesting, but I had never seen this before. Grabbed it today. 1967 board game with some great graphics. The original game was made by some company in Lichtenstein! This is the American version licensed from Mondotoy, made by Lowes of New York.

The graphics show things like Dyna-Soar, the 5-leg Grumman LM, the Boeing Moon Base concept, early space station designs, the 1962 NASA LM, pics of a Cooper, Grissom, Young, Stafford and
Carpenter, John Glenn and Shepard are on the box. Saturn I launch on the box, early Apollo command module prototype, a guy who looks like Major Matt Mason, and lots of other cool stuff. The little plastic rockets come apart into four stages. The cards include espionage and sabotage cards!

Cheers
Darth
Canada

Multi-Explorer-Force 12 (From Burscough)

 

A few articles ago, Woodstock asked if there was any direct connection between the Explorer series of toys nd Multimac. Always on hand to settle a query, I delved into the archive to find some examples.

 

As far as Explorer 12 goes, i'd direct anyone who is interested in the toys to Joe Langs fab blog for more info on the line. As far as Multimac, my experience of the toys are a range of inexpensive space toys which appeared in the 80's, initially as carded examples like the one above, with a small gold pilot. The central cockpit area and the gold pilot are almost identical copies of early Tomy Zoids. Zoids started out as simple, skeletal clockwork dinosaur robots, but gradually became quite complex and large toys.

Super Zoid Cyberdon

Multimac 'borrowed' certain elements from Zoids and added various other standard parts, such as tracks, wheels, bulldozer blades and drills.The resultant models could usually be found in seaside toy shops or in discount shops at xmas.

Alongside the standard Multimac were a hundred unlicenced copies of the toys, such as the remote control toy above. The wheel layout is similar to Explorer 12. The Multimac range also expanded to make larger more complex models such as the Lobster and other zoid like creatures. The Ocean Discovery set includes enough parts to create a robotic shark, crab, hovercraft and robot. In these larger sets, Multimac borrowed the figures from Bluebird Manta Force and changed them very slightly. This meant that the scale of the models was larger. Some later sets also included a static figure also.

Explorer 12 figures are a similar scale to Manta Force and the poseable Multimac ones. This led me to consider if it might be possible to combine elements from the three ranges to supplement Explorer 12.

Consequently, I took a small Helijet from Manta Force and a drill element from Multimac and added them to the Explorer truck. As the Explorer vehicles are quite basic and lack complex accessories, it is easy to add customised elements to spare flatbed trucks. Kinder Eggs also supplied a deep diving suit, scaled nicely to fit an EX12 pilot.

Another similar toy which reflects the EX12 line is the Amphibious Truck, a six wheeled vehicle with large wheels which enable it to float, paddles on the inner side of the wheels providing motive power. The cab shape is very similar to the yellow Argentine EX vehicle featured previously. And just to round off the cavalcade of multiwheeled goodness, a selection of similar vehicles, including the sublime Mars Explorer Vehicle, a tracked version of EX12, generously donated by Joe Lang himself.

BUDDY L POWER DRIVER

UNKNOWN MINI MOON BUS

MARS EXPLORER

TOMY ADVENTURE BUGGY

SWORD Value Pack of Party Fun

Recently I blogged a set of spaceship party favours, which were available on Ebay. Eagle-eyed Paul V spotted the similarity of one of the toys to our friend the Zero X [thanks Paul]. Well, mention the words SWORD and MINIATURE and I go all funny and my brain says BUY, BUY, BUY! So I did. This is what was in the header carded bag...

 and nicely laid out.....

 and the header card......

and picking out a few and posing them with the SWORD manual......

Until we get to the star of the pack, yep, a miniature Zero X! And it comes in three colours including blue! Too much!

Placing the two best lookalikes from the bag, the 'Probe Force 1' and the 'Zero X', together with the TF2 from the real SWORD mini series from Japan [middle], they don't kook half bad really! What do you think?

Monday Morning Blues

Well, Monday's here and another week of hard labour beckons. Toil seems endless at Moonbase what with refuelling the heating tanks, topping up the oxygen, checking the stores, walking the space mutt. And then there's 5 days down the cheese mine. Not much collecting to be had until Saturday when I go Earthside for a trip to Memorabilia at the NEC in Birmingham. Yehaa!

What's your week looking like? Any collecting events in your neck of the system?

Morinaga Snacks Zero X

Morinaga snacks from Japan: Deformed Thunderbirds and Zero X gifts

Morinaga snacks: normal Thunderbirds packs

Morinaga snacks: normal Zero X gift

The Place is Full of Leathery Things...Soft To The Touch

With the chestbursting prospect of Ridley Scott's Alien 'prequel' PROMETHEUS drooling on the horizon and Easter just round the corner I lent my hand to this seasonal film poster. Your own versions welcomed.

Which is your own favourite scene in the ALIEN films and what are you hoping for with the PROMETHEUS movie? Did/do you have any toys?

And was there ever an ALIEN Easter Egg? [Yuk!]

And will you get any choccy eggs? And will you send me one?

Title quote from 1979 ALIEN SCRIPT

Explorer 2012

Eons ago when I first started to talk to WOTE online we discussed how much we liked the EXPLORER 12 toy range marketed by the bastion of the British high street, British Homes Stores or BHS [did other big stores have their own space toy ranges?] We exchanged books and pictures via the Royal Mail and much pre - Ebay fun was had.

As with all collecting, Ebay's vast empire opened up even more Explorers and it's relatives from around the globe. here are two I've spotted recently both from Argentina. Above is the GALGO MULTIRUEDAS [multi-wheeled] 12 x 12.

And above this is the RESCUE MULTIRUEDAS 16 x 16, a similar sort of toy. Returning to the BHS line iteself, I was chuffed to see this boxed Base Station online [pictured below] with cool plastic raised platforms and ramps. I think if I wasn't hooked on SWORD I think I would collect Explorer 12. If you fancy it yourself then why not check out THE blog for the Explorer range, Joe Lang's ubercool http://explorer12s.blogspot.co.uk/

I've often wondered if Explorer 12 and Multimac were related in some way or whether the toys went together well? Can anyone send a piccy of both ranges placed together?

The Avengers [without the Jumpsuit and Bowler]

In preparation for the upcoming Avengers Assemble movie, the cinema high-spot of the year, I'm reading a stack of old Marvel Avengers comics. I'm really enjoying them. So far there's epic battles with the mighty Magneto, the origin of the supercool Black Panther and major grouching at the X-Men.

Currently I'm reading about a new enemy, the Brain Leeches! Captain America is the new leader of the Avengers but he just can't shake his rivalry with Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic. I'd forgotten how many 'gods' and 'demigods' there were in comics. The Avengers are sprinkled with dieties like Eros,  Thor [of course] and Gilgamesh [pictured: Marvel], who I had to look up on Wiki! I'm sure there'll be many more [?].

Who are your favourite Avengers characters? [besides Steed and Emma Peel!] and do you have any Avengers/ Thor/ Fantastic Four, in fact any Super Hero collectables?

Further Excursions

Those LEM's keep a comin'. Canadian reader CS has sent this message and cool piccy: Hi Woodsy, my name is CS (in Canada) and a big fan of your blogs which have been a tremendous help in my own toy collecting. Here is a pic of the Playmates LEM and command module I mentioned. CS.

And blog regular Andy B has unearthed another NASA icon, the teatowel! I'll let Andy explain: Woodsy, your excellent article on the Apollo toys gives me an excuse to unleash the ultimate British, or perhaps Irish (linen) Space souvenir - an Apollo teatowel from 1969. Can't be many of these about I suspect! Andy B.

In a hole ? Stop Digging

The Thunderbirds Excavator is a model which I previously assumed was a design which had been added to the model range purely as a filler and had no basis in actual Thunderbirds history. While I was looking into the SPV series of articles, a cursory exam of a Thunderbirds annual revealed the machine in all its glory. It was quite a revelation to see the machine in print, but also a surprise because it was illustrated by another of my favourite artists, Ron Turner. Next to Mike Noble and Ron Embleton, he is one of the illustrators that I immediately think of when I consider TV21. Around the the same time, I won a set of Imai kits on ebay of the Mole and Excavator. I have already blogged the large kit of the vehicle which I built earlier, which revealed that a smaller version existed.  The large one had an option to motorise it, but in  the set I got recently, was a smaller, simpler kit,

Where the large kit has tracks included, the small version has simple wheels. The claws also are static, but the arms move and the front grate opens. As with the big model, I decided to customise it considerably, cutting out the front of the vehicle and adding in some interior detail to represent the grinding and crushing apparatus. The cockpit included a tiny thunderbirds pilot, which I cut out and replaced with a golden Zoid pilot. I had used this figure in the large model, but due to the difference in scale, I swapped it to the small kit and used a Mega Rig figure in the bigger kit. As the kits are quite simple and toy like, I wanted to preserve the toy look, so I kept the paint job minimal and relied on the self coloured plastic. The kit came with a similar scale Mole, molded in yellow and blue, the Excavator in silver and blue.

The smaller kit reflects Turners slick artwork even better than the larger, more colourful kit, the clean lines and simple shape shining through.

Cereal Filler

Woodsy,

Here's the R&L LEM (with a couple of bits missing) hooked up to the R&L CSM, both fresh from a voyage from the Corn Flakes packet!

Cheers

Tony P.

A FEW GOOD LEMS

LP

CLIFFORD

BLUE SHIELD

AHI

SPACEX

From my cyber archive over the last few years.

Pictures: Woodsy, Ebay, Vectis

Have you any more LEMS?